TCW vs. Rebels debates are not allowed in the Television forum. As in, discussions that descend into TCW/Rebels (or any show vs any other show) bashing/gushing will be subject to Mod action. Contrasting the themes, story lines, characters, etc. between the shows is allowed (welcomed, even). "Versus" debates/arguments, however, are a deal-breaker.

TaradosGon: If you're going to bring logic into this discussion I'm just gonna take my ball and go home! I've been a defender of this series' storylines to those who have decried what they believe to be it's illogical missteps but even now I'm finding it...difficult...man, this is hard..still love the show but...Gotta rewatch these arcs!

They dont have to stop using clones, they can order all chips removed though.

At this point its not even a matter of Zero Common Sense, its just so patently obvious it goes far beyond suspension of disbelief. I mean I cannot believe the Jedi did not demand to see all medical files on the clone and done level 5 scans or whatever when Obi-wan initially brought this info. I mean sure can u sell me the Jedi were dulled by being in power for so long sure but come on at this point Chancellor Palps could have a full holo recording of himself basically laying out his whole plot and the Jedi would still ignore it and act surprised when Order 66 rolled around.

Also its kinda funny its hard to tell this is the same Mace. In the movies, you get the feeling he hates Palps guts and views him as a lying snake but in the clone wars I would swear he is a plant.

In isolation these arcs great but overall massive problems when brought into the wider universe.

Finally saw the Yoda arc (I'm skipping the Clovis arc (aside from Anakin's beatdown) and Jar Jar Arc for now).
At the very end, before Yoda leaves Korriban/Moriband, he's told of another Skywalker and mentions a new path that opens to give them victory for all time. Does this make Luke the Chosen One or is it still Anakin?

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It is still Anakin.

What he saw was a bit of the future and what his last words will be. We all know those are his last words in ROTJ.

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I don't know but this might be an Episode VII spoiler!

Seriously though, going forward we have no guarantees about the Star Wars universe anymore. If they can skirt this close to revealing EVERYTHING to the Jedi too soon for Episode III, they can literally do whatever they want with the Skywalker heritage. Not saying that's what I want, just saying that TECHNICALLY they could change the Chosen One or even have another Skywalker at the time of The Clone Wars...

So where does Order 65 fit into all of this? I doubt that Palpatine would have a plan meant to kill himself. Did Dooku add it so that he could rise above Palpatine? Did the Kaminoans throw it in in case Palps threatened them? I get that the chips were placed in the clones as part of a plan to turn them into slaves that kill Jedi, but I don't see the point of commisioning an army that could easily turn against you.

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Order 65 was an insurance policy - the clone army was ordered before Episode 1, and so before Palpatine became Chancellor. Had something gone wrong with his ambition to be Chancellor, he would have instead pushed himself into a 'vizier' role, senior and close to whoever was actually elected (think Mas Amedda). He would then have Order 65 to remove that Chancellor when necessary.

How can the Jedi just stop using the clones? They can't just throw out their army; they need the clones to stop the Separatists. The Jedi's ultimate (and pretty much only achievable goal) is to end the war as fast as possible before the Sith trigger their endgame.

As for why they didn't see Order 66, Palpatine elegantly made it appear that the inhibitor chip was nothing more than a way to suppress violence in the clones and to make them more obedient. And he did a great job with it, as Fives appeared to degrade into a raving lunatic who threatened to kill even the chancellor after having his chip removed.

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And then there's the "inoculation" which Palpatine ordered be given to every clone. What would that be? A new biochip that's more tightly integrated into the clones' grey matter (perhaps as something other than a tumour, indistinguishable from surrounding neurons) and thus even harder to find and remove? Some other means of assuring compliance and secrecy?

Palpatine isn't some passive player in this. He knows what Fives was rambling to Rex and Anakin about because it wasn't any more than what he told Fives personally and the findings which the ARC disclosed to him. The Jedi ordering the removal of the known biochips is a risk to his plans if they cease accepting his explanation for Tup and Fives' behaviour and start considering Fives' explanation at some point, but Palpatine recognises this risk, which is why he even crafts the diversionary explanation of parasites and insanity in the first place. It's not explicitly stated, because Palpatine isn't going to disclose any new Order 66 compliance means to the Jedi and perhaps even Dooku, but the "inoculation" mentioned at this point is very strongly hinted to be linked to Order 66 and obfuscating the truth which Fives revealed. Fives and the later enlightened Jedi Council are not firing at a stationary target.

Keep in mind that this arc was meant to be part of a larger Season 6 and the subsequent planned Seasons 7 and 8 would have inevitably developed the story in the context of the points laid down in S6. Rex would have probably been central to this, but as it currently stands, his story is in suspension.

Finally saw the Yoda arc (I'm skipping the Clovis arc (aside from Anakin's beatdown) and Jar Jar Arc for now).
At the very end, before Yoda leaves Korriban/Moriband, he's told of another Skywalker and mentions a new path that opens to give them victory for all time. Does this make Luke the Chosen One or is it still Anakin?

Click to expand...

It is still Anakin.

What he saw was a bit of the future and what his last words will be. We all know those are his last words in ROTJ.

Click to expand...

I don't know but this might be an Episode VII spoiler!

Seriously though, going forward we have no guarantees about the Star Wars universe anymore. If they can skirt this close to revealing EVERYTHING to the Jedi too soon for Episode III, they can literally do whatever they want with the Skywalker heritage. Not saying that's what I want, just saying that TECHNICALLY they could change the Chosen One or even have another Skywalker at the time of The Clone Wars...

Click to expand...

They will not change the prophecy; it would be huge retcon and results in altering the entire PT and TCW.
I assume it means even though Anakin will fall to the dark side, he is still the Chosen One. The other Skywalker just provides an alternative route and, I'm guessing, Luke will go on to achieve the full potential that Anakin failed to be.

How can the Jedi just stop using the clones? They can't just throw out their army; they need the clones to stop the Separatists. The Jedi's ultimate (and pretty much only achievable goal) is to end the war as fast as possible before the Sith trigger their endgame.

As for why they didn't see Order 66, Palpatine elegantly made it appear that the inhibitor chip was nothing more than a way to suppress violence in the clones and to make them more obedient. And he did a great job with it, as Fives appeared to degrade into a raving lunatic who threatened to kill even the chancellor after having his chip removed.

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Finishing the war as quickly as possible is not an achievable goal by itself, the the clones are obviously the end game. And the Order 66 arc took place BEFORE the Jedi found out that Dooku was Tyranus, so the Jedi dropping the issue after the Order 66 arc makes some sense, but in light of additional evidence, it should have been brought up again. And yes, as Rebels shows (or is said will show), the Jedi could have stopped using the clones, given that there are those willing to serve in the military. It could not have been achieved over night, but recruits don't go to boot camp for 10 years. I mean, by the end of ROTS, clones seemed to be phased out of the Navy (no clones aboard the Republic Cruiser at the end) relatively quickly. In AOTC, there was a vote going before the senate over the matter of raising an army, and this was before the discovery of the Kamino army. So it's not like the Republic didn't have the man power or infrastructure to raise an army on relatively short notice. But a better alternative to stop using the clones in the short term would have been to remove the chips.

Fives was angry at the Jedi as soon as he found out they were the ones (via Sifo-Dyas), who ordered the chips to be put in the clones' heads. I'm sure the Jedi could have found another volunteer that wants the chip out and they would have discovered that the removal of the chip does nothing. Instead they buy Palpatine's faulty explanation.

And all the chips were said to do was make the clones more obedient and less independent and aggressive as Jango was. And Jango did not go around mumbling orders about killing Jedi or good soldiers following orders, or conspiracies.

Fives does come across incoherent, but he quite explicitly says that there are chips in the clones' heads that will make them kill the Jedi and those at the top of the government are involved.

Dooku says that the senate is controlled by a Sith.

The Jedi discover that Dooku ordered the clone army and begin to question if he's the Sith master as initially believed.

Dooku said there is a Sith in charge of the Senate and his name is Darth Sidious.

Yoda has visions confirming the existence of a Darth Sidious and showing the Jedi getting wiped out by clones.

Mace senses a plot to destroy the Jedi and is aware that the Dark Side surrounds the Chancellor.

This isn't rocket science. And there's really no excuse for the stupidity here on behalf of the Jedi.

Plus the Jedi are all about trusting their feelings and instincts, and Shaak Ti did not believe the Kaminoan's theory about a virus because it didn't explain Tup's rambling about orders to kill Jedi. Palpatine's excuse would equally not explain this. There was nothing elegant about the explanation that it's a parasite, that would explain why the Jedi are acting more independently and disobedient, it would not explain why Tup was rambling about killing Jedi (and did kill a Jedi), while Rex did not kill a Jedi and was instead trying to warn the Jedi about a plot to kill them.

And it's not like Mace's comments in ROTS ("I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi. The Dark Side surrounds the Chancellor") occurred in different scenes or anything, they are back-to-back sentences. It's heavily implied that Mace believed that the Chancellor may be involved in the plot to destroy the Jedi. The Jedi aren't prepared to accuse Palpatine of being a Sith, but if nothing else, they might suspect that he is being controlled/manipulated by the Sith.

This is EXACTLY what Fives says. Mace is arriving at a conclusion that Fives already told them about. A plot to destroy the Jedi, with it going "all the way to the top." That should ring some bells and make the Jedi begin to suspect if what Palpatine told them regarding the parasite was true.

But the Jedi can't just replace the clone army. Given time, the Republic certainly could create an army to oppose the Separatists. But the Jedi do not have the power to this, and as the mention in one of the episodes, bringing this up before the Senate would cause a panic and could very well turn the Republic against the Jedi. Beyond that creating and training an army takes time. As Yoda says, they have no other choice than to play the Sith's game and try to end the war before the spring their trap. As Yoda points out, the clones have proved to be trust-worthy and steadfast companions who've saved the Jedi countless times.

Only Anakin (and Rex) heard Fives full rant and he was besmirching one of Anakin's father figures. Who knows what actually went into his report to the Jedi Council. Anyway, Palpatine's machinations made it appear that the chip is used to repress violence in the clones and to keep them "sane". The Jedi aren't cold-hearted they aren't going to remove the chip from other clones just to see what happens if they believe it will likely cause send clone to go insane.

Now I'm not saying there isn't any idiocy involved here, there is. But it has been there since AotC.

Today's special word is 'Doom' and only because this is a family show peeps. If I suspend ROTS from reality the Jedi have already been completely run into the ground so far down they can't get out no matter what they do. TCW has been getting linear since season 4 and the Lost Missions awesomely linear with much of the same themes running through the episodes.

The Jedi are burning in PR hell. How in the ever living hell do the Jedi get out? I can tell you right now saying, "Hey these clone troopers that have been bankrupting us are all broken and going to kill us. So we are going to replace them. Guess that means we gotta instate a draft and get your lazy asses into armor ASAP now to fight the Separatists" is not going to go over well. Not that the Jedi can do that anyways and drafting Bob the accountant from Coruscant with quick training to replace a Clone Trooper is gonna end well for anybody.

Another running theme is the darkside clouding the Jedi's senses and their judgement. They are pretty much arrogant elitists. TCW didn't say this stuff. Its a lame throw-away from 2002 TCW rolled with. I don't think the Jedi are taking plots to destroy them seriously enough. They think they'll curbstomp anyone who tries. That's also a fatal mistake they made in ROTS. Its pretty evident with Shaak Ti who pretty much says to the Kominoan doctor over an over again, I don't care whose property you think any of this is, I'm a Jedi, what I think is above everything else. I'm a Jedi, don't mess with me, don't even... And then pretty much assumes the doctor isn't stupid enough to mess with her and the Jedi council so leaves Fives unguarded.

Really I liked Palp's total Batman Gambit. I want to believe he told Fives everything because the truth is pretty much insane and predicted correctly his buddy Anakin would be the one to hear it. After that is chalked up to a parasite and the Jedi go on as they were. There wasn't really anything else they could do.

Now the Yoda arc is really cool in that it brings alot of plot strands together including the ol' Clone Arc together with plot strands from season 3. Really Yoda is the exception, the only one who seems to be looking for a bigger picture and seeing it. There is a reason he's chosen although I still don't think that Yoda was taking the notion the Jedi could be destroyed any more seriously.

But the Jedi can't just replace the clone army. Given time, the Republic certainly could create an army to oppose the Separatists. But the Jedi do not have the power to this, and as the mention in one of the episodes, bringing this up before the Senate would cause a panic and could very well turn the Republic against the Jedi. Beyond that creating and training an army takes time. As Yoda says, they have no other choice than to play the Sith's game and try to end the war before the spring their trap. As Yoda points out, the clones have proved to be trust-worthy and steadfast companions who've saved the Jedi countless times.

Only Anakin (and Rex) heard Fives full rant and he was besmirching one of Anakin's father figures. Who knows what actually went into his report to the Jedi Council. Anyway, Palpatine's machinations made it appear that the chip is used to repress violence in the clones and to keep them "sane". The Jedi aren't cold-hearted they aren't going to remove the chip from other clones just to see what happens if they believe it will likely cause send clone to go insane.

Now I'm not saying there isn't any idiocy involved here, there is. But it has been there since AotC.

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Why would public opinion turn against the Jedi? Palpatine used his emergency powers to take control of the army, an army created by Dooku. Would it create panic? Yes. Would it turn opinion against the Jedi? Why would it?

Yoda's course of action leads the Jedi to ruin. Yes, there were other choices, and he picked the wrong one. Keeping it amongst themselves (and Yoda not breathing a word of his visions in the final arc) are idiotic decisions that go above and beyond that of AOTC. At least in AOTC, the Jedi weren't positive who ordered the clone army, and the Yoda Arc seemed to indicate that at least initially the Jedi were inclined to believe that it was Sifo-Dyas who did it due to visions of danger. So really they hesitantly took control of the army.

But when you know that

1. Dooku ordered the army (or at least did so along with Sifo-Dyas).
2. There is a Darth Sidious that has infiltrated the Senate.

Yoda' plan doesn't work. He had a choice and even going to the senate and creating panic would have accomplished more than "playing the Sith's game" (it's pretty clear why this is the dumbest sentence that Yoda has ever uttered). Because then the Senate would have desperately wanted to STOP use of the clone army, which would spare the Jedi from Order 66 and force Palpatine to try and salvage the situation.

Let's evaluate Yoda's plan.

Win the war before Sith end game.

Fast forward to ROTS: Dooku is dead, Grievous is dead. War is more-or-less over. Palpatine gives a single order and Jedi are annihilated. Yoda's plan was idiotic and winning the war ASAP achieved nothing. The Sith had infiltrated both sides and it was pretty clear that the clones were going to be the method by which the Jedi were destroyed. Winning the war does not remove the clones from the picture. Yoda's answer to the problem was a non-solution.

EDIT: I really don't see how the defense of "the Jedi are idiots" is supposed to make for a good story. Or how "well, this decision wouldn't go over well" is a reason to not pursue a course of action other than the one that pretty much guarantees destruction. The Jedi were boxed in, and there was no way out that wasn't going to be messy, but if they died because they were too afraid to step on anyone's toes, then would it not have any other course of action better than using an army created by the Sith.

Drafting would have been preferable. The Separatists wanted to secede. So what happens if the Republic Senate starts crying out for a diplomatic solution, can Palpatine really say no?

If the Senate started panicking and calling for the complete removal of the clone forces ASAP, what's Palpatine going to do? Say "No, **** you, don't wanna! Can't make me!" That's one way to fast track himself out of office and to get the Jedi to see him for the corrupt individual that he is. Palpatine either consents and loses his ability to execute Order 66, or he doesn't consent and gets himself booted out of office. He loses either way.

The Jedi are the only ones that really see the Sith threat, and with their extinction, the galaxy plunges into oppression. They know this. They need to survive if the Republic has a chance. And they pursue a path of guaranteed destruction, over several other paths, that no matter how messy or unpopular, might have given them a chance.

If there was a panic in the Republic Senate over the clone army being ordered by Dooku, don't you think the Separatists would be equally ticked off if they learned that the guy that supplied the Republic with an army that they've been fighting for several years is their leader?

I found the Yoda arc had little bits and pieces of references that wouldn't seem out of place in Luceno's and Stover's prequel novels, especially with regard to their writings on the Force.

For instance, The Lost One was focused entirely on the idea that Sifo-Dyas and the clone army were part of a greater Sith plot, and while I was a little disappointed that Hego Damask/Plagueis wasn't mentioned once in the arc, I can understand why he'd be largely irrelevant to the Sith's current designs; Sidious took over all of his Master's plots. I already mentioned in the Yoda Arc Discussion thread that the way the Sith are portrayed in this arc, as being extremely powerful beings more than a match for almost any Jedi, is very similar to how they are described in Darth Plagueis. It's likewise awesome that we get to see the LiMerge Power building again, and I couldn't help but think about Yoda's vision as somewhat similar to the Jedi's own investigation into the Sith hideout in Labyrinth of Evil. Only in the vision, Yoda, Anakin, and their group do succeed in confronting the Sith while they are plotting together. I do wonder, however, why Yoda doesn't decide to investigate the building sooner? From what I remember, in LoE they only just discover the location of the Sith hideout in the Works, so unless the images there weren't as clear to Yoda as they were to the audience, he probably should have investigated it. Given how lucid the vision was, I wonder why Sidious really went out of his way to risk Yoda knowing all this just to "break his spirit." Perhaps Yoda would have no real recollection of his exact location, but I doubt he'd dismissed those Sith visions he saw in that Temple on Moraband so readily.

Stover's awesome viewpoint of the Force seemed to be emphasized throughout the Yoda arc as well, beginning with the fortune cookie for Voices: "Madness can sometimes be the path to truth." Not unlike Shatterpoint. But really, the episode Sacrifice emphasized themes like Sidious being an overwhelming darkness, "a black hole in the Force" that Stover described in the RotS novelization, only we can see this kind of play out metaphorically in Yoda's vision and the battle he has with Sidious. It was neat that Sidious was performing a ancient Sith ritual, which aligns with the EU idea that he was very interested in Sith alchemy, and hoarding as much ancient Sith knowledge as possible so that he could become the most powerful Sith that ever lived. It was really awesome seeing Sidious chant an incantation in the ancient Sith language (called "Balc" now according to the Episode Guide):

The idea that only by achieving totally selflessness (as mentioned in the RotS novel), like what Qui-Gon did, could a Jedi learn the secret of retaining their identity after death, is greatly expanded upon in this arc. A power no Sith could ever achieve, for as described in the episode Sacrifice, they apparently reject the notion of there ever being life after death. Even if Darth Bane's spirit wasn't actually an illusion conjured by the Priestesses to test Yoda, the fact that he seems powerless to do anything to Yoda after the diminutive Master rejected Bane's existence suggests how truly powerless a dead Sith is. Contrast with a Jedi Force Ghost actually being able to communicate between the realms like in the OT, or Qui-Gon's disembodied voice actually using the Force to levitate Yoda and blow out the candles in his meditation chamber, and we can see that Jedi Force Ghosts are so much more potent that tortured Sith specters.

Someone mentioned at the Ep7 forum that at the very end of the final episode, the camera pans to three leaves after Yoda mentions that victory could be achieved not in the war, but "for all time." I really wonder if this is a metaphor for a "trilogy of trilogies" that George Lucas originally had in mind, with the sequel trilogy being the final trilogy, wherein by learning how to retain his identity after death, Yoda and other Jedi Force Ghosts could remain to teach the next generation and ensure they achieve this "victory for all time," which may indeed be ensuring that the Force will always remain in balance for the rest of time. It's subtle, but that's the closest hint I can get to Episode VII, given this arc was written probably conceived around a year before the Disney purchase.

TaradosGon, have you read Labyrinth of Evil and the ROTS novelization?

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No, why?

I've read 3 SW novels and excerpts or previews from many more. For instance, I have all the Lost Tribe of the Sith novels off Kobo as they were/are free. But for the life of me I cannot get through the first. And I could only get through 1/4 of Plagueis. I am not the biggest fan of the SW novels. I have little intention to buy a novelization of a film.

I know a lot of people like Plagueis for instance, but IMO it was mediocre at best. I can only give SW novels so many tries (especially those wildly regarded as "good") before I write them off as not my thing.

The comics hold more appeal to me as more of a visual medium next to the games, tv series and films. Not bogged down by paragraphs of techno babble and mysticism.

I am not getting why Yoda needed to be taught how to survive death in the first place. Dead!Yoda didn't do anything in the original trilogy, did he?Dead!Ben was the one helping Luke, and he was taught by Qui-Gon Jinn off-screen after ROTS. So why Yoda needed to be taught is a mystery to me.

P.S. Unless they totally ignoring EU, the line about victory for all the time is utter crap.

Yoda was chosen first because he's the Jedi looking for answers and a bigger picture. He's tasked to teach it now isn't he?

And...

I don't think the Jedi were afraid to step on any toes. They just didn't do anything. There isn't any defense of the Jedi being idiots,TCW isn't making that point. Really the point of the Jedi being elitests is an after thought in both the Order 66 arc and Yoda's arc. Most of the Jedi think they'll beat anything trying to destory them. Who can blame them. Looking at it from an IU perspective who in their right might would want to take on a Jedi? Well besides an idiot like Clovis.

They were the defenders of the Republic weren't they? The Council seems confused by this actually. Hell in the arc with Jar Jar, Mace seems confused by the accusasion Jedi steal babies. The decision to lead the clone army and use it because Jedi were the best qualified was one they thought they made in the best interest of the Republi even though it was a compromise to their ideals. The Jedi knew this. It was actually a worthy sacrifice and probably kept scores of innocent civilians from having to experience the horrors of combat.I don't think the Jedi would have asked to start drafting for real and I'm doubtful many in the republic would sign up if Season 3 is anything to go by.

I have a general question. Apart from The Son of Dathomir, are there are more plans to bring more of the un-aired story arcs into being? I recall reading a quote by Dave Filoni somewhere that said he hopes to make them all available over the course of the next 10 years. I just think we need to see the end of the story, and at this point I don't care what form it's in.

I have a general question. Apart from The Son of Dathomir, are there are more plans to bring more of the un-aired story arcs into being? I recall reading a quote by Dave Filoni somewhere that said he hopes to make them all available over the course of the next 10 years. I just think we need to see the end of the story, and at this point I don't care what form it's in.